


Second Chance

by Octibbles



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:42:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octibbles/pseuds/Octibbles
Summary: An au where the trolls lose their session of Sgrub and end up dying, only to be reincarnated on Earth in a new universe. Unfortunately for them, they all have scattered memories of their time as trolls and each of them hold a different piece of the puzzle. In order to figure out their past, they have to find each other.





	Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> About five years ago I first started trying to write this fanfic, but for three years I wasn't satisfied with any of the many drafts I wrote. Recently I got back into Homestuck and found the last draft I ever wrote of this, so I decided to take a whack at it again. 
> 
> I have not read through the comic in a while, so if the characters seem a little ooc at first I'm sorry! It'll improve as I go since I am rereading.
> 
> Without further ado, here's the au that took five years to build.

“Every 17 year old wants to spend the summer at their boring aunt’s house. Especially if said house has no airconditioning and happened to be located in Palm Fucking Springs! Yay!” Karkat grumbled as he pulled his luggage up to the guest room. God, it was sweltering, did her airconditioning really have to be fucking broken? He silently cursed his parents for dumping him here for the summer. They gave him some sort of bullshit excuse that he needed to get out of the house and see new places, but he suspected they just didn’t want him around. He understood that. He didn’t even want himself around.

He closed the door with a little too much force, dropped his suitcases unceremoniously onto the floor, and then dropped his body unceremoniously onto the bed. The ceiling fan rotated in slow circles above him, causing him to doze off slightly, but he jerked awake soon afterwards. He did not want to sleep. He avoided that as much as possible, and for good reason; ever since he had turned 13 he was plagued with these crazy nightmares. They always felt so real, and people were always dying in them. Or at least- things that sort of looked like people. They were grey and had horns, so he didn’t really know what they were, but in the dreams they were always his friends or at least his allies. Every once in a while he’d get a dream that was pleasant, but it always included those weird creatures.

It stressed him out, and usually left him feeling like shit for hours, so he slept maybe three times a week. He was constantly exhausted and grouchy, but it was better than having a breakdown every time he woke up. Still, the heat in the room and the soft bed seemed to cause every nerve in his body to work against his wishes, and he passed out without having a chance to resist.

Karkat came to his senses on a vast black-and-white checkered ground, but somehow he knew it was a battlefield. Panic set in and gripped him, every muscle froze. He felt someone tugging at him, telling him to get up, telling him they had to leave right now. He turned to see who it was, and was met by a familiar face. It was a girl with bright red glasses and sharp features that matched her pointy horns. Her face was haloed by the sun behind her which would have made her look almost angelic if she didn’t look terrified. In the distance there was some ungodly roar, and the situation finally clicked in Karkat’s mind. He shifted his eyes and saw what he was dreading: bodies and blood. Oh god so much blood. It was multicolored, almost paint-like, but he could smell it. It made him sick. The girl was still pulling at him frantically, but he had gone limp at the sight. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will away the scene.

He awoke to a loud knock on his door. “Karkat? Honey?” His aunt’s voice called from the other side. “We’re going over to the neighbor’s for dinner. We’ll be leaving in thirty minutes.”

He groaned, rubbing his eyes which seemed to be wet with tears. All he wanted to do right now was lay there and try to deal with what he just saw, but he knew his aunt wouldn’t take no for an answer. With any luck no one would try to talk to him and he could relax for a little while. Preferably with airconditioning.

Upon arrival it was very clear that luck was not on his side.  
The neighbors consisted of a woman around his aunt’s age and her teenage daughter. His aunt and the woman seemed to be very good friends by the way they immediately struck up conversation. That was okay, the less they payed attention to Karkat the better. What wasn’t okay was the fact that he recognized the woman’s daughter, and it wasn’t like he’d run into her before or anything, oh no. She was identical to one of the creatures from his dream: the girl with the red glasses and short pointy horns. Obviously this human version of her didn’t have horns or the grey skin or even the glasses, but it was undeniably her. 

This had happened once before last summer; Karkat had run into another person who looked nearly identical to one of the creatures at a Best Buy of all places. In his dreams he had four horns and eyes that glowed red and blue. As a human he had blonde hair and heterochromia, but his eyes were simply blue and brown. He nearly shrugged it off and ignored the similarities, but when he heard his voice it was exactly identical. With a momentary lapse in judgement, Karkat had explained everything. The guy, who, according to his nametag, was named Sollux, looked shocked at first, but that soon turned to defensive anger and he told Karkat that he was crazy. He refused to listen to anything else he had to say.

After that Karkat had begun to think that maybe all of this was in his head, and now looking at this girl he began to think that again. What was it that made her look like the one in his dreams? She was just a normal human girl with bright red hair and a pretty face. Oh god, did he just think that? No. Now was not the time to go there. She hadn’t noticed him this entire time, she was engrossed with something on her phone, and he hoped it would stay that way, but as soon as he thought that she glanced over at him.

Her expression near-immediately turned to one of complete confusement, and Karkat immediately dropped his gaze down to the floor. He could feel her eyes boring into him with no sign of letting up. The other her was blind, but this one was definitely not. He thought the situation wouldn’t escalate further than that, but then he heard her mother ask his aunt if she could help in the kitchen, leaving them alone in the living room. 

He heard her get up and walk over to him, but he kept his eyes firmly on the floor, wishing he could just disappear. 

She was quiet for a moment, but then finally broke the silence. “Hey, uh… This is going to sound a little weird if I’m wrong, but there’s something going on and I think you know about it.”

Her voice sent a shiver up Karkat’s spine, he remembered it all too well. He peeled his eyes away from the floor and looked back over to her. There were a million things he could’ve said, but all that came out was “What?” 

“I have to show you. Come on.” She motioned for him to follow, and headed up the stairs. He hesitated, but finally followed her up. 

She led him to her room, and he nearly hit the floor when he saw why. The walls were covered in drawings, mostly in chalk but there were fading remnants of what seemed like more permanent substances. He recognized almost all of them: they were the creatures from him dreams as well as places he had seen. He was absolutely frozen in place staring at them until the girl grabbed his arm and dragged him over to a particular one. This creature was one he had never seen, but it only took a moment for Karkat to realize that it was himself. 

Her voice brought him back to reality. “Judging by your expression, I think you do know something about this.” 

“Yeah- I mean, kind of. I don’t know if I know much more than you. What do you know?”

She gestured around. “You’re looking at it. I draw these in my sleep, so I don’t get any more context than the drawings themselves.”

He studied the walls again, picking out both familiar and unfamiliar scenes. “I see things in my dreams. It’s a lot of the stuff you have drawn, but they’re like memories. Really fragmented memories. It’s hard to explain what they all mean, but it always ends in everyone dying.”

She looked a little disappointed, but nodded. “And I’m one of them?”

“Yeah.”

“If we exist, do you think all the others do too?”

Part of him wanted to deny that he had ever met Sollux, but he knew there was more to this puzzle than the pieces they both had. “I met another one, so I think so.”

Her face lit up with excitement. “You met another one? Did you talk to them, what did they say?”

“He called me fucking crazy and then refused to listen to anything else I had to say.”

She snapped her fingers. “Damn it. Maybe he’s just in denial, I bet he knows something.”

Oh god that tone of voice sounded like she was planning something. “Well I guess we’ll never know, that’s too bad!” He turned to walk out of her room but she grabbed him with astounding speed.

“Oh no no no, you don’t get to just walk away from this like that. We’re going to figure this out, even if I have to go find him without you. Give me everything you know about him.”

Karkat groaned. “Okay, fine. His name is Sollux and he was working at a Best Buy in San Diego last summer.”  
“Sollux, huh? That’s a weird name. Speaking of weird names, I’m Terezi.”

He had never heard her name before in any of his dreams, but it clicked perfectly. “I’m Karkat.”

Terezi let out a laugh. “Geez, we all got some unfortunate names, huh?”

He mustered a smile. “I think you got off easy. I mean, who the hell thinks Karkat is a good name for their kid? My parents are just cruel.”

“Anyways, Karkles, do you know where exactly the Best Buy is?” she asked.

“Okay first off, don’t ever call me that again, and secondly I don’t know exactly where it is, I’d just know it when I-” He stopped talking abruptly, realizing what he was going to say would pull him into the mess she was planning.

Her mouth split into a wicked grin. “When you see it? Well that settles it, you’re coming with me!”

He groaned. “Jesus Christ, no, I can just look it up on google maps or some shit…”

She shook her head. “Nope! You dug that grave, now you have to lie in it. You doing anything tomorrow?”

He would’ve tried to fight back some more, but he did want to see if they could get any more information out of Sollux. Plus Terezi seemed like she could be pretty intimidating, so maybe it’d go better. “No, I’m not doing anything tomorrow.”

“Perfect! I’ll pick you up at 11 and we’ll go harass a Best Buy employee.”


End file.
